[QUOTE=shinkan] so many letters...anyway I'm Polish and can speak/write/read in English. Obviously google translator is my biggest helper with funky or proper technical words, but not using that very often though.[/QUOTE] well what would you! :D hello there! from what city are you shinkan? Warszawa here :)

My native language is Ukrainian, however I can speak/read/write in English and Russian. Also I can understand Polish roughly because lots of tourists from there are coming to my native city every month. We had some good times chatting with each other (slowly and trying to understand what each of us is trying to say) And English was very helpful in that case I must admit. Well that's it... Oh! I almost forgot I use Google translate sometimes to get meaning of some specific technical therms. Now that's all folks!

I'm French. I can fully understand what is written in English. I'm used to reading articles from UK or US newspaper. My English skills are actually tested twice a month : an english speaking teacher gives us a text or a recording drawn from The Economist or The New York Time for instance and we have to sum it up, say what we think about what is said, etc.However I lack fluency during those exams : I have to speak (paper and pen forbidden).

In France people are lazy, in order not to feel guilty they argue French is a wonderful language (actually it's not so wonderful). Ironically they can't even use their own mother tongue properly.All English TV shows broadcast in France are translated, a very few channels enable people to turn it off and listen to genuine voices.We also have a terrible English accent as you must know. There are indeed sounds hard to produce : for instance the "th". Nevertheless some like "h" from "have" for example are easy to produce : someone who would pronounce those sounds outside English classes would be laughed at because it "sounds ridiculous". It is as if French people were trying to worsen their English.

It seems that many countries struggle with English, but in India the case is completely different. People here(mostly upper middle class/rich families) use English instead of Hindi, which I find annoying. If you can't speak English then the chances of getting a job is pretty slim.

Well, there's no definite solution since there are more than 60 languages spoken here, with each of them having half a dozen dialects. Only 40% here speak Hindi.

I think it's probably to do with the Empire being so large at one point, the saying "The Sun never sets in the British Empire" meaning there at one point was always a country on the globe under sunlight under British control.

I think it was basically spread that way, and supported to some degree by trade.